


Harmony

by flawedamythyst



Category: Marvel
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Bucky Barnes Has Issues, Clint Barton Has Issues, Gardens & Gardening, M/M, Recovery from trauma, Soulmate-Identifying Music, Tony Stark Has Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-22
Updated: 2019-05-22
Packaged: 2020-03-09 20:06:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18924127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flawedamythyst/pseuds/flawedamythyst
Summary: As part of his recovery, Bucky sets about fixing up the overgrown flower garden right next to where Clint had set his range up.Huge thanks to Villainny for betaing it for me, and for being a wonderful human being.





	Harmony

The constraints of owning real estate in Manhattan meant that the gardens at Avengers Mansion didn't stretch out the way Clint had always figured a mansion's grounds should, but they were still plenty big enough. Most of it was lawn, but there was a stand of trees and a swimming pool as well, and an area surrounded by a low hedge that had once been a flower garden. 

Now it was just a scrap of grass surrounded by overgrown flowerbeds filled with weeds. Clint set his range up next to it, because it made him feel more at home when not everything was neat and tidy, picture perfect like a magazine shoot.

When Bucky Barnes came out of the woodwork and ended up living with them, he seemed to think the same thing. 

He spent most of his time hidden away in Steve's rooms, ignoring all invites to join the rest of the team, but he clearly liked being outside because most days he came out and spent an hour or two lying on the grass right in the middle of the old flowerbeds. 

Clint thought about cryostasis chambers and underground bunkers and only going outside when there was a mission, and left him to it. He'd be taking his chance to look at the sky as well, in Bucky's position. 

Besides, Clint liked to take his hearing aids out when he was shooting so that it was just him, his bow, and the familiar comfort of his soul song playing in his head.

When he'd first gone deaf as a kid, he'd clung on to his soul song, shutting his eyes and concentrating on the notes because no matter how bad his hearing got, he'd always be able to hear it. He was never going to be completely in silence. 

It started out a bit intense and heavy, but the second part melted into faster, more upbeat notes, shedding all the weight of the first section while retaining the beat. Clint loved it, loved settling into the rhythm of it as he shot his arrows, landing each one on the beat.

When he found his soulmate, the only other person in the world who had the same tune running through them, he hoped it was more like the second part between them than the first part. Not that he'd care that much if it wasn't, because just having someone who got him on that kind of level already felt like he was asking too much.

That was the kind of thing his therapist wanted him to work on, but Clint wasn’t very good at paying attention to the stuff she said. She was paid to make it seem like he was important enough for her to spend an hour a week caring, after all.

Not that therapy wasn’t a useful thing for other people. Somehow they found a therapist who was qualified to deal with Bucky's issues upon issues, and after a few weeks of daily appointments, he started being around the communal areas more, sometimes even eating with the team. He didn't talk much, and sometimes he left abruptly halfway through, but he was clearly trying so Clint did his best to stay relaxed and friendly around him, without putting any of the pressure of an actual conversation on him.

Which was why it was such a surprise when Bucky cleared his throat in a lull during a particularly boisterous team meal, fixed Tony with a nervous but determined look, and said, "Got a favour to ask, Stark."

Everything went very quiet as Tony looked at him. He'd been less than happy about having Bucky move in, but had let it happen when Steve started saying that if Bucky couldn’t move in, he’d move out. Mostly he coped by ignoring Bucky's presence entirely, which Bucky had seemed willing enough to help with. 

"Seriously?" said Tony. "I'm already providing you with room and board, and now you're wanting more?"

Bucky's head dropped a bit, but his jaw stay clenched. "It's about that bit of garden, the overgrown bit. My therapist said it would be good for me to have something productive to do, something that puts something good into the world. I was wondering if you'd mind me fixing it up."

Tony was quiet for a longer time than Clint would have figured, giving Bucky a narrow-eyed look that gave nothing away.

"Sure," he said, eventually. "Knock yourself out. Saves hiring a gardener, right?" He stood up, even though his plate was still half full. "Okay, this has been fun, but I'm a busy man, got to-"

He left without finishing the sentence. Bucky glanced at Steve, who gave him a reassuring smile. 

"Told you it would be okay."

Bucky snorted. "Sure, Stevie, that was clearly totally fine."

"What kind of things are you going to plant?" asked Clint, trying to wipe some of the stress off Bucky’s face. "Are we going to be getting fresh vegetables?"

"Nope," said Bucky. "It's going to be flowers. Something beautiful to balance out everything else I’ve done."

He flinched after he’d said that as if he hadn’t meant to share that much, so Clint gave him a grin that he hoped was reassuring. “Sounds good,” he said. “You’re gonna put in at least a couple of purple ones, right?”

Natasha rolled her eyes. “Clint, you do know there are other colours, right?”

Clint shrugged. “None worth talking about.”

Bucky started working on the garden the very next day, clearing the weeds out of the flowerbeds with a ruthless glare that made Clint think he was maybe projecting some of his anger issues onto the plants he was pulling up.

Eh, whatever made him feel better. Clint just dialed his hearing aids down and settled in to his target practice.

Over the next few weeks, Bucky cleared out the flowerbeds, trimmed the hedge back into a neat square shape, then started putting in all the many plants that had been delivered to the mansion. 

Clint tried not to stare at the guy, but it was kinda hard once he started stripping layers off, all sweaty and dirt-stained from the hard work. It wasn’t like Clint was going to make a move, not when Bucky was clearly still working through some stuff, but he wasn’t blind. He could appreciate a view with that many pretty muscles in it.

One morning, Bucky waved a hand to catch Clint's attention, then held up a plant he was about to put in the bed closest to Clint's range and said something Clint didn't catch.

He reached up to flick his aids back on. "Sorry, didn't catch that."

Bucky held the plant up again. "This one will flower purple."

Clint grinned. "Yeah? That's awesome. Purple's the best."

Bucky rolled his eyes, but he was smiling as he turned back to his planting.

Clint went back to shooting but left his aids on in case Bucky had anything else to say. He didn't want to discourage the guy now that he was finally starting to come out of his shell.

He could hear that Bucky was humming quietly to himself as he worked along the bed, putting in an assortment of plants in what looked like a random order, but it was too low for Clint to get more than a note or two and a suggestion of the rhythm.

It was only when Bucky moved down the flowerbed towards Clint's position that he realised that Bucky's rhythm was the same as the rhythm Clint was shooting to. He paused for a moment, arrow notched to the string, and strained his ears to hear the notes.

They were achingly familiar. Bucky was humming Clint's soul song.

Clint lowered the arrow and turned to stare at him, awareness skittering over his skin. If Bucky knew Clint's soul song, he must be his soulmate. 

Clint eyed him in a whole new light, noting the relaxed half-smile on his face as he carefully pushed the earth down around a lavender bush. He was just reaching the upbeat second part of the tune, Clint's favourite bit. He took a deep breath and joined in, whistling along to the tune he'd been born knowing, and which Bucky must have been humming for nearly a hundred years. 

It took a couple of bars before Bucky caught on. His head jerked up and he stared at Clint, his humming falling silent so that Clint finished the song alone.

"You know it," said Bucky, in a rough voice.

"Yeah," said Clint, stepping closer so that only the foot-high hedge and the width of the flowerbed separated them. "It's mine as well."

Bucky let out a very long, slow breath, not even blinking as he stared at Clint's face. "I didn't ever think I was going to meet you."

"Yeah, me neither," said Clint, because he was realistic enough about his usual luck to have assumed that he'd be one of the poor bastards who never found a harmony.

Bucky stood up and for a moment Clint thought he was going to step right on the flowers he’d just planted to get closer to Clint, but he glanced down and stepped around them instead, until there was just the hedge between them. Bucky reached out his right hand to take Clint’s; warm, dirt-stained skin pressing close and making Clint’s nerve-endings light up like nothing he’d ever experienced.

“Hi,” said Clint, stupidly. He was grinning so widely that his face ached, but he couldn’t seem to tone it down at all.

Bucky laughed. “Hi,” he said in return. “You, uh. You want to go get lunch or something?”

“Definitely,” said Clint, still beaming because that sounded like a date, a date with his actual soulmate.

Bucky’s gaze shifted over Clint’s shoulder at something in the distance. Clint turned to look and saw Tony and Steve coming across the lawn. Steve was carrying a box in his hands, and Tony was clearly talking at him, hands gesturing sharply.

Clint looked back at Bucky, and he knew what Bucky was going to say before he said it. “Can we maybe wait before we say anything?”

“Sure,” said Clint, letting go of his hand and trying to hide the stab of hurt. Bucky was still getting himself together, and Clint wasn’t exactly anyone’s idea of a dream soulmate. Of course he’d want some time to get used to it before he told his best friend.

“Bucky,” said Steve, once he and Tony were close enough, “we need to talk.” There was a heaviness to his voice and he had a pained frown that reminded Clint of the first couple of days that Bucky had been back, when Steve had still been adjusting to just how different he was after everything Hydra had done to him.

“Sure,” said Bucky, and he gestured over at the entrance to the garden, where he’d built an archway and was starting to train roses up it. “Come round.”

He headed off on his side of the hedge and Clint followed Steve and Tony as they went around their side, because he wasn’t ready to just walk away from the revelation that Bucky was his soulmate just yet. Besides, it seemed like maybe he was going to need some back up on whatever this was, if both Steve and Tony were part of it.

Bucky paused under the trellis arch. “Okay, what’s going on?” he asked Steve.

Steve’s frown grew even more pained. “It’s this,” he said, and handed the box to Bucky.

Bucky opened it up and a pleased smile took over his face. “Oh, hey, it arrived,” he said. “I wasn’t expecting it to get here until next week.” He pulled out a wooden sign and turned it to show Clint. “What do you think? I’m gonna hang it from the arch.”

 _The Bucky Barnes Memorial Garden_ , it read in thickly carved letters.

“Looks good,” offered Clint.

“Looks good?” repeated Tony. “Jesus, Clint, and I thought I was insensitive.” He looked at Bucky, and his face softened into the very rare look he got when he was about to say something important and emotional. “Look, Barnes, this isn’t the solution. I know we haven’t exactly been in a position to hit it off as friends, but it must mean something if even I think this is a bad plan.”

Bucky looked up from admiring his sign. “What? What plan?”

Steve cleared his throat and, shit, it sounded like he was going to cry. “Bucky,” he said softly, then nodded down at the sign. “You don’t need a memorial. You’re still alive.” He paused before adding, “Please, stay alive.”

The realisation of what they were implying hit Clint about half a second before it hit Bucky, if the look on his face was anything to go by. His eyes went wide and his hands tightened on the sign.

“What? Fuck, no, Steve, don’t be an idiot. I’m not gonna do that, that would be letting Hydra win.”

Steve’s shoulders slumped with relief. “Oh, thank god,” he said.

Bucky’s eyes darted over to Clint. “I’ve got lots of stuff to live for, and it seems like I keep finding more,” he added, and Clint grinned back.

“Okay, then why the fuck call it that?” asked Tony, nodding at the sign. “You know memorials are for dead people, right? Except for Cap’s one in Arlington and, actually, your one in Arlington, wow, you two are just fucking with the guys there, they must hate you.”

Bucky shook his head and held the sign back up. “It’s not a memorial for me,” he said. “It’s me doing the memorialising. It’s-” His face twisted in an unhappy way that made Clint want to reach out and take his hand again, but Bucky didn’t want that, not in front of the others, so he shoved his hands in his pockets instead. 

“It’s a garden for me to remember everyone I hurt,” said Bucky quietly, then he turned to gesture at the half-planted flowerbeds. “There’s going to be a plant for everyone I killed.”

The statement hit Clint like a punch in the gut, and he could see it took Steve in the same way. “That wasn’t you,” Steve said. “You didn’t have control.”

Bucky shrugged. “It was my hands,” he said. “I was the one who saw their faces as they died. Steve, it’s- I had to do something. All those lives, I couldn’t just pretend like it was nothing.”

Tony had gone very still and his face had shut down into an expressionless mask. “My parents,” he said, and didn’t bother making it a proper sentence.

Bucky nodded. “Yeah,” he turned and gestured at the two rose plants on either side of the arch, stems carefully entwined in the trellis to help them climb. “I’ve been intending these two, but if you think something else would be more fitting-”

“No,” interrupted Tony, looking at the two plants. “That’s fine.” He stared at them for a moment longer, then abruptly tore his eyes away. “You know, this was my mother’s garden,” he said, gazing off into the distance to avoid meeting anyone’s eyes. “She used to do most of the work herself, which is why it went downhill after she died.” He hesitated, then looked straight at Bucky, who looked half-stunned. “I think she’d have appreciated you sorting it out for her.”

Bucky took a deep breath. “I hope when it’s finished, it’s something she’d have liked.”

Tony jerked a nod, then clapped his hands together and took a step backwards. “Well, as long as that’s all sorted, good talk, but I have places to be, things to do, can’t hang around engaging in idle chitchat like this.”

He took off back across the lawn at something only a half-step down from a jog. 

“Bucky, you really didn’t have to do this,” said Steve.

“Yeah, I did,” said Bucky, but it was clear from Steve’s face that he didn’t understand at all.

“You needed to feel like you’d taken the time to acknowledge them,” said Clint, softly. “That you hadn’t just forgotten about them.”

“Yeah,” said Bucky. “That’s it, exactly.” He cracked a weak smile. “I guess I should have known you’d be the one to understand.”

Clint shrugged one shoulder, thinking about all the agents in the helicarrier and the lists he’d kept of their names for a good long time, before he finally felt like he could let them go. “I guess we’ve got more than a few things in common.”

Bucky’s smile grew stronger at that, and Clint felt his soul song grow louder in his mind as he met Bucky’s eyes. Fuck, he had a soulmate. He wondered when that would stop being a source of awed wonder.

“Are you…?” asked Steve, eyes darting between the two of them. “Did something happen?”

Clint was trying to think of a way to put him off the scent, at least until Bucky was ready, when Bucky reached out and took Clint’s hand. “Turns out we sing the same song,” he said, pride bursting through his voice in a way that melted the cold spot that had formed in Clint’s chest when he’d thought Bucky was ashamed of him.

He squeezed Bucky’s hand as Steve stared at them both. “You’re soulmates?” he asked.

“Yep,” said Bucky, still grinning, and then let go of Clint’s hand as Steve stepped in to hug him, squeezing tightly and muttering something into Bucky’s neck that Clint didn’t catch but which made Bucky laugh.

Before Clint could start to feel awkwardly like a third wheel, Steve turned and gave him a hug as well, catching him off-guard with the suddenness of it. “I’m so happy for you,” he said. “I hope you’re very happy together.”

“Thanks,” said Clint, slapping Steve’s back a couple of times. “I’m still kinda processing it, we only just figured it out.”

Steve stepped back and gave them both a smile that threatened to burst off his face. “Guess I should probably leave you to it, then,” he said. “Seriously though, congratulations.”

Bucky reached out for Clint’s hand again. “Thanks,” he said. “Now fuck off so we can make out.”

Steve rolled his eyes, but obligingly headed back to the house.

“Thought we were keeping it quiet,” said Clint, watching him go.

Bucky shook his head. “Not really. I just figured telling Stark would end in fireworks,” he said. “I wanted to enjoy it a bit before the teasing began, but I don’t have secrets from Steve.”

Clint snorted. “And Steve doesn’t have secrets from Tony,” he said. “I reckon we’ve got about ten minutes before the whole house knows.”

Bucky looked at the mansion consideringly, then back at Clint. “Ten minutes is enough time to get out of here for that lunch, if we’re quick.”

“Yes,” said Clint, because that was the best idea he’d heard all day. He looked back at the arrows still buried in his target. “I just need to pack up my gear.”

Bucky nodded. “I need to wash up and maybe change my shirt,” he said, glancing down at his dirt-streaked t-shirt. “Meet out front in ten?”

Clint let go of his hand so that he could hurry over to his target. “Bet you lunch that I’m ready first,” he called over his shoulder as he started packing up.

“You’re on!” said Bucky, and he sprinted back up towards the house.

Fuck, Clint hadn’t thought this through, he had dirt on his hand as well now, and he probably could do with a different shirt if he was going to go on a date.

He flung his arrows into his quiver and grabbed his bow, then turned to head after Bucky, only to find that Bucky had done a u-turn and was now jogging back towards him.

“What?” asked Clint. “Forget something?”

“Yeah,” said Bucky, and he gave him a shy smile. “Forgot that I hadn’t done this yet.” He reached out for Clint slowly enough for him to pull away if he had any interest in doing that, wrapping a hand around the back of Clint’s neck and then pulling him down into a kiss.

None of the stories Clint had ever heard about what it was like to kiss your soulmate had prepared him for it. His soul song soared louder in his head, drowning out all thought that wasn’t about how perfect Bucky’s lips felt against his. He took hold of Bucky’s shoulders almost by instinct, pulling him in closer as their mouths moved together and the music felt like a physical thing surrounding them.

“Okay,” said Clint, shakily, once they’d separated and Bucky was staring at him with a shocked look and reddened lips. “That’s- huh.”

“Yeah,” agreed Bucky breathlessly, then pulled him in for another kiss.

Clint went willingly. Lunch could wait.


End file.
